Wakefield (7-9-3-1-7, 106) kept the Jays in check, and Daniel Bard, Dan Wheeler (who finished the eighth inning after a 40-minute rain delay), and Jonathan Papelbon closed it out. It was Wakefield's 184th Red Sox win and the 198th victory of his career.

Ellsbury and Kevin Youkilis each homered (leading off the first and second innings, respectively) and doubled twice. Ellsbury (now 13-for-27 since June 29, .481) drove in three runs and stole a base.

The Yankees lost to Cleveland 5-3 [Masterson: 8-3-0-2-6, 112], so the Red Sox are 0.5 GB in the East.

Adrian Gonzalez gets the night off. He had started all of Boston's previous 85 games this year. In his last eight games, he's hitting .219 (7-for-32) with a .618 OPS, and has "a bit of a stiff neck apparently".

Wakefield's last outing (July 1, in Houston) was the first start in his career that he had pitched more than 2.1 innings and did not record a walk or a strikeout (5.1-11-5-0-0, 91). Wakefield's only other start with no BB or K was for the Pirates on September 7, 1992.

Romero has a 1.49 ERA in his last four starts, including a complete-game shutout of the Cardinals on June 26. However, among teams that have faced him more than once, the Red Sox hit him best, by far (.350/.441/.550/.991 in 10 starts; 70 hits and 32 walks in 48 innings; 2.125 WHIP, 7.69 ERA).

For those of you without nesn. Heidi talked to Farrell about why there have been so many ejections lately. He talked at length about how on the field play has not kept up with technology. So, with replay, you know about the bad calls. He then went on to say that the Players and coaches are the only ones who *have* to comment and that there should come a time when the umpires actually involved in the calls have to discuss them. Nice bit.

This excellent rally was started by the first two batters, who required Romero to throw 13 pitches just to get 2 outs and then On Fire made him through another 5 before he drilled it. I think they flat wore him out this inning.

TV shows a great replay. As he is headed toward second, LBJ was looking for a sign from Bogar about going to third. It looks like he never got it and had to stop at second. He put his hands out as he is reaching second as if to say, what should I do?

Hi guys. Been following some on my phone. It's just kinda hard to comment here. And for some reason I can't get gdgd to come up on it. I thought I had done it before but maybe not. Anyway, stuck with spiders v mfy here so leaning on JoS for the skinny. Later!